Sorry to hear about your negative upgrade experience, and... that's really strange.

Is it possible that you got switched from your latest Firefox profile folder to an older one? Another sign of that might be losing 75 days of history, assuming you keep history, and not having any add-ons you installed during that time.

Let's look for other profiles:

(1) Windows Desktop

If the Firefox "Refresh" feature runs, your old profile folder will be moved to your desktop inside a folder named Old Firefox Data. Do you see anything like that? Check inside for a profile folder (partly random name, like a1b2c3d4.default) and inside that for a bookmarkbackups folder. Each file has its creation date and number of items coded into its name.

(2) Profiles folder

Start by opening your current Firefox profile folder using either:

* "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
* (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
* type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter/Return

In the first table on the page, click the "Open Folder" button, to launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.

In the Windows Explorer address bar, click the capitalized word Profiles to move up one level in the folder hierarchy. More than one folder here by any chance? Check for bookmarkbackups in each folder.

I should have mentioned this other possibility:

Firefox can display a list of profiles it is aware of. To see that, inside Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it.

If you see a profile that is not currently set as default that looks promising, scroll down to it and click the Set as default profile button below that profile, then scroll back up and click the Restart normally button. (There are some other buttons, but I think those are still "under construction" so please ignore them.)

Firefox should exit and then start up using the other profile. Is that the right one?

It is possible that there has been a problem with the profiles.ini file that registers profiles and that a new default profile got created.

You can check if you have an orphaned profile that isn't registered in profiles.ini and that doesn't show in the Firefox Profile Manager. You can check that by opening the current profile folder via the about:profiles page and go up one level (..) to see if there are unlisted profiles present. If you have found an orphaned profile then you may want to recover some personal data or restore his profile.

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

You can recover an orphaned profile via these steps:

• use the Profile Manager to create a new profile
  https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-firefox-profiles
• click "Choose Folder" in the Profile Manager
• browse to the location of this profile to register this profile in the Profile Manager and use this profile

See "Profile was moved or renamed":

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-run-firefox-when-profile-missing-inaccessible

Note that you should never use "Choose Folder" to specify a folder that already contains files that do not belong to Firefox. Only use "Choose Folder" to recover an profile that isn't listed in the Profile Manager.

Thank you both for your replies.

Re: jscher2000's suggestions.

(1) I did a Windows search and looked on my desktop for any new folders. I found no such folder.

(2) There is only one profile folder

(3) In about:profiles, there's a profile in use, but it says both that the profile is default and that it isn't. Not sure what how page usually reads. Here's the info on it, minus the address of my profile. I replaced the computer details with info in brackets:

>>Profile: default >>This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. >>Default Profile no >>Root Directory C:\Users\[ComputerName]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[Number].default >>Local Directory C:\Users\[ComputerName]\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[Number].default

If the profile is the default profile, then should it read "no" after default in this about page's details?

I will check cor-el's s suggestions and report back.

Is [ComputerName] your normal Windows login name? If you have already, you could consider shutting down and restarting Windows in case there is a little user profile confusion.

In response to the 75 days of history, I don't see any history listed either, but it might have been cleared by a computer scan I did, after last closing my browser.

allesey said

In response to the 75 days of history, I don't see any history listed either, but it might have been cleared by a computer scan I did, after last closing my browser.

What kind of computer scans do you run? Do they keep a list of files they quarantine or delete?

You may want to scan for deleted files with Recuva. In particular, looking for more recent files whose names started with bookmark-2018

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

It's probably best to turn on viewing of hidden files and folders if you haven't already: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

@jscher2000

[ComputerName] is my normal login. There's only one user for this computer. Does the about:profiles page look normal, otherwise, Will a default profile read "no"?

I restarted Windows. No luck. Still in November, as far as FF is concerned, My bookmarks toolbar is also from months ago,

I ran a https://www.ccleaner.com/ccleaner scan. But the scan usually doesn't make me lose bookmarks. I'll install and run recuva,

Re: suggestions from @cor-el

This may be right in front of me, but I don't see an option to go up one level under the ...menu or anywhere else. Under the ...menu, there's bookmark this page, save page to pocket, copy link, email link, send tab to device and take a screenshot. There's no up arrow. I'm running Windows 8.1.

Profile: default means that the name of this profile is default (xxxxxxxx.default on the hard drive). Default Profile: no means that this profile isn't set as the default profile (i.e. doesn't have Default=1 in profiles.ini).

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file

jscher2000 said

You may want to scan for deleted files with Recuva. In particular, looking for more recent files whose names started with bookmark-2018 http://www.piriform.com/recuva It's probably best to turn on viewing of hidden files and folders if you haven't already: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

I turned on viewing hidden files. I ran recuva and there are no files starting with bookmarks-2018. There are a few bookmarks-2016 and one boomarks-2017 (Feb.). I looked around ccleaner and I don't see how to view deleted files.

Edit: I double-checked and ccleaner is set to delete only Firefox internet cache, internet history, cookies and download history. Everything else in Firefox, like session and site preferences, should not be deleted.

cor-el said

Profile: default means that the name of this profile is default (xxxxxxxx.default on the hard drive). Default Profile: no means that this profile isn't set as the default profile (i.e. doesn't have Default=1 in profiles.ini).

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/profiles.ini_file

So how could my profile be listed as the default profile at the top of the page and then have "no" after Default Profile?

Is this a legitimate program?

http://www.recoverdeletefiles.com/undelete-word-documents.html

I found it on a search for how to view ccleaner's deleted files, on this page: http://www.recoverdeletefiles.com/by-ccleaner.html

cor-el said

It is possible that there has been a problem with the profiles.ini file that registers profiles and that a new default profile got created. You can check if you have an orphaned profile that isn't registered in profiles.ini and that doesn't show in the Firefox Profile Manager. You can check that by opening the current profile folder via the about:profiles page and go up one level (..) to see if there are unlisted profiles present.

Is there another way to go up one level aside from using the ... menu, since I don't have that option?

allesey said

Is this a legitimate program? http://www.recoverdeletefiles.com/undelete-word-documents.html

I would not try random undelete programs!!

allesey said

Is there another way to go up one level aside from using the ... menu, since I don't have that option?

In Windows 7, each folder in the Windows Explorer address bar is clickable to move up to that folder. Not sure about Windows 8.1.

allesey said

So how could my profile be listed as the default profile at the top of the page and then have "no" after Default Profile?

The profile is named default, but it's possible to have a different default profile. I think there should always be at least one profile that is specified as the default profile, so not having any default profile is odd to me.

Could you try something different to try to find a backup. Either of the following programs will let you explore files saved by Windows in restore points, which are commonly made when you install Windows Updates (monthly or so). Perhaps you can find a bookmark backup file from earlier this month that way.

First, make sure Windows is set to show hidden files and folders: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files

Next, try one of these programs:

• ShadowExplorer: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/
• System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

Within each restore point you check, you can explore along this path:

\Users\[ComputerName]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

I greatly appreciate the continued help.

jscher2000 said

I would not try random undelete programs!!

Wise advice on undelete programs. Momentary lapse of bookmark madness, on my part. ;)

jscher2000 said

In Windows 7, each folder in the Windows Explorer address bar is clickable to move up to that folder. Not sure about Windows 8.1.

While Windows Explorer has the up arrows and clickable folders, unfortunately, the Firefox address bar (for Win 8.1), hasn't had the up arrow for a while. I thought maybe I missed some other obvious feature. Is there another way to see if I have any unlisted profiles or an orphaned profile, as @cor-el mentioned?

jscher2000 said

The profile is named default, but it's possible to have a different default profile. I think there should always be at least one profile that is specified as the default profile, so not having any default profile is odd to me.

Hmmm. I wonder if my bookmarks problem has to do with the no specified profile.

But, I also wonder how my bookmark info from November (nearly 3 months ago) could suddenly be the last info Firefox has. The last 15 days of bookmarks has changed many times, since then. Does Firefox save any bookmark info anywhere else besides my computer?

jscher2000 said

Next, try one of these programs:

• ShadowExplorer: http://www.shadowexplorer.com/
• System Restore Explorer: http://nicbedford.co.uk/software/systemrestoreexplorer/

Creative thinking! I used both programs (neat little programs). Each found only one restore point. If I did everything correctly, that is. But unfortunately, even though the programs found restore points from earlier in January 2018, the date of the bookmarkbackups folder from each program, is from the beginning of Nov., 2017. Not sure how this could be possible,

I now have backup of my bookmarks folder and know how to backup future versions. But I'm wondering how else to avoid this problem, in the future. Was it likely the Firefox update to 58.0 or the ccleaner scan or something else? Pretty alarming to have lost such important info.